Saturday, January 31, 2015

I completed the January portion of the 2015 tapestry diary today. Tomorrow the February adventure will begin. I have three drawings completed to select from; I'd like to have a couple more finished before choosing which one I'll start with.

My bins of past wefts fill the center of my studio and I'm hoping to mostly use from these weft bits as I move through the year with the diary:

Since I usually combine more than one yarn in a weft bundle for my tapestry weaving, I almost always have to separate strands for what I'm going to use each day. Most of the weft bundles are also only a yard or so long--in other words, I'm not just picking up and using from these wefts in the bins. I have to select the colors I want from a couple of bundles, separate them and then recombine them. Tedious. Yes. But that's OK. Tedious is synonymous for Tapestry.

Monday, January 26, 2015

The opening for the exhibit that I mentioned in the last post was quite nice. Lots of people were at the Hudgens Center both for the Intertwined exhibit and also one in another gallery in the Center.

I didn't take many photos but here's one of a portion of the gallery along with some of the artists and guests:

I had two pieces in the exhibit, one that was accepted by the juror, Dorothy Moye:

The perspective of the photo is a bit skewed--the frame is squared and it's hanging straight. This tapestry is called The Greening.

I was also invited to exhibit as a member of the SEFAA advisory board in an adjacent small exhibit that Ray Pierotti curated. I'm standing by that piece, Gray Dawn, here:

A full color, 72 page, soft cover catalog of the exhibit will be available by mid-February. It may be purchased at the Hudgens Center for the Arts gift shop, 6400 Sugarloaf Parkway, Duluth, GA 30098, or purchased at the Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance Center, 1705 Commerce Dr., NW, Atlanta, GA 30318, or ordered online at fiberartsalliance.org/home/eshop

Monday, January 19, 2015

Notice the couple of images of fiddleheads? One in black, white and gray and one in greens and red-oranges? Details of the two pieces.

I've seen a few photos of the installation on Facebook and it looks like it will be a wonderful exhibit. I'm happy to be included. The exhibit will be traveling to three other venues throughout Georgia before it ends.

Saturday, January 17, 2015

The weaving of it, that is. I made the warp earlier in the week and dressed the loom. Today I took a trip to the local UPS store to have the cartoon printed on the wide format printer and now I've gotten turn-back area underway. I'm weaving this turned 90˚ to the direction it will hang because of several shapes that will be better woven in a more horizontal direction (see my thoughts in this post when I was weaving a sample for this tapestry in December).

Here's the "blank slate" first--nice, empty warp ready for anything:

And here's the beginning of the turn-back. You'll see the cartoon attached temporarily so I can line up the color areas of the turn-back with how the colors will begin in the tapesry.

I'll be posting more of this tapestry progress as it happens--maybe. Maybe I'll post, not maybe progress will happen!

Thursday, January 15, 2015

The tapestry diary is the only weaving I'm getting done right now. No, that's not quite right... I am working on more samples for both the upcoming John Campbell class and for the next larger tapestry. And I'm in the process of threading for the larger tapestry that will be on the Ruthie loom. It's 12 epi and so takes awhile to thread.

Here's the progress of the year so far on the daily piece, beginning the third week of January with the third oak leaf:

Update on the 17th ... not enough for a new blog post but thought I'd show where the third week is leading me:

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Well, 2015 is well underway and so is my tapestry diary for the year. Seventh year of this daily obsession! I'm changing approach a bit this year. I'm still marking each day that I'm home by weaving an individual bit. But for this year I've decided to do something each week, as well.

I make a lot of drawings and painted studies of things I'm considering for tapestry. Most of the time those don't make it into anything other than a portfolio for storage. I'd made several small drawings and paintings when I was at Hambidge in the fall and as my idea about something weekly began to develop I looked through those. I noticed that I had several variations of individual oak leaves that might be useful for starting the weekly approach. I used Photoshop to crop out the leaves from the larger sheets on which they were done and sized them to not larger than 6" in the longest direction.

Here's what the diary looks like today, January 10. The first oak leaf was finished up at the end of the first week; there are squares and bands of color that indicate the days that have passed. I'm beginning the second leaf and will finish it by the end of week 2 of January.

My "rules" for the year are now set--a weekly something combined with the individual day parts. And one continuing restraint--use from left-over wefts from other tapestries. And do I ever have loads of those! Possibly there will be some times in the year that I'll have to take something from a fresh skein--but I don't think much of that will have to happen.

And if you out there--you know who you are--have ever considered doing a "tapestry diary"--I say, DO IT! Even if only for a week. Having the daily challenge is enlivening, weaving just a small amount for which you don't particularly have a plan. And yet you remember that only you are making the rules. And you can always say to yourself, "I'll do this today, or not. And whichever I do, it's OK!"

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

I just got back from Asheville where I had a couple of tasks to accomplish. One was to pick up tapestries from the Blue Ridge Fiber Show that had been held at the North Carolina Arboretum until January 6. The show is always a nice one and I was happy to receive an award this time around!

My other task was to have Tim Barnwell photograph my 2013 and 2014 tapestry diaries. Asheville is about 3 hours away and when I'm going to be there for any reason at all I've been trying to schedule with Tim so that, bit by bit, I'll have good photos of my tapestries. Today's session included the landscape that I just cut from the loom a couple of days ago. Of course, I haven't had time to completely finish the piece (or the tapestry diary pieces, either). That's where masking tape comes in handy!

Here's the make-shift hemming job, done this morning in the hotel room:

Here's what Tim's camera saw (this is my photo taken with iPhone; his will be much better):

My 2013 tapestry diary piece was a challenge to hang to photograph. It's 102" long and without hanging device at this point. A couple of T-pins were holding it up and Tim will blink those out with Photoshop.

Here's my iPhone shot of it while it was hanging. The colors will be better in Tim's photos. He also shot a few details of the tapestry. This was the first time I've seen it hanging up, in fact! I just don't have a ceiling that high at home or the studio. I like the play of colors throughout the piece. The neutral areas are linen and indicate days when I was away from home. The largest blank came in the summer of 2013 when I was teaching for two and a half weeks at Penland. Other blanks were from other teaching times and also a residency. These colors were hand dyed and I also used more of the dyed wefts in 2014.

Again, my photo. Colors will be more true in the photos Tim made.

I'm hoping to get a new warp on my wider loom this week. I'll be using 12/6 cotton seine twine for a sett of 10 epi--I'll be tackling blood root next, I believe! Oh, and I still need to get the ends finished for these poor pieces. No more masking tape solution. And about that masking tape? I took it off the pieces as soon as I got home this afternoon--don't want to leave it on too long and get sticky residue on the tapestries.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

A new tapestry was "born" yesterday afternoon. I cut off a small landscape that I've been weaving since October. I've had off and on weaving sessions since so much has been going on throughout the fall and the holiday season. But I determined to finish the piece--at least the weaving stage.

Here it is--front:

And back:

Lot of end finishing to do before the tapestry will be really finished.

A couple of my completely finished tapestries will be in a fiber exhibition that opens in a few days at the Hudgens Center for the Arts. I'm looking forward to seeing the exhibit and the works that have been selected.

This morning I had a beautiful surprise--I glanced up as I was typing and saw this:

About my work

I am an artist who observes and responds to my surroundings for inspiration.My primary artistic medium is handwoven tapestry, an ancient method of working with fibers to create images.As I seek images and ideas to interpret into tapestry I experience my surroundings a closely as I can. Photographs, sketches, paintings, and writings all are part of the research I put into my work.

I have been living in the southern Appalachians most of my life and so my surroundings are filled with natural forms of woods, streams, and fields.My eyes are frequently drawn to the myriad details of the landscape and many of my tapestries are based on aspects of those details, simplified and enlarged in a weaving.

time marches on...

Tapestry diary of the year 2018 is underway. I'm doing individual days as bands, squares or rectangles of separate colors. Months are going to be represented as larger images, each month being sticks OR stones. I've just finished the stick for July, a mountain laurel twig.

...(I) have come to the conculsion that tapestry can indeed be an art form in its own right with its own specific mode of expression if the craft of weaving is allowed to influence the art of tapestry. In order to be meaningful, tapestry must find its own identity. It must not be a woven painting, but rather a composition that could only have been woven, not painted.